1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a recording apparatus which is particularly effective to print out high quality character or pattern information from an electronic computer or the like.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Heretofore, mechanical impact printers have often been used as the output devices of electronic computers or the like. The recent advancement of electronics has enhanced the processing capability of operation devices or storage devices, and this has in turn given rise to the desire for output printers which will excel over the conventional mechanical impact printers in performance. In answer to these requirements, various non-impact printers have been exploited and among these, the so-called transfer type electrostatic recording or electrophotographic recording system is most excellent because of its high printing speed, high printing quality and low running cost. According to this system, the information from an electronic computer is formed as an electrostatic latent image on an image bearing member such as a photosensitive medium or the like, the electrostatic latent image is developed into a visible image by the use of toner, the visible image is transferred onto plain paper and the toner image on the plain paper is fixed and discharged as an output. No problem occurs as long as the information is continuously supplied, but when information is supplied intermittently or when writing of information is intermittent, blanks corresponding to the intermissions would be created on portions of the transfer paper if the feed of the transfer paper is continuous.
Also, if the feed of the transfer paper is stopped during the intermission of the information to be written and the transfer charger is left operative of paper feed has been stopped, the transfer paper may become stained or the image thereon may be disturbed.
Further, when the fixation of the image on the transfer paper is carried out by heat-fixing means (a heat roller, a radiant heating lamp, a heat plate or the like), the transfer paper may be broken or burnt if it passes intermittently through the fixing means.
Furthermore, if the paper conveyance and the image transfer operation take place intermittently but the rising and the falling time of the paper conveying operation are long, the images may suffer from misregistration and, if the transfer corona or the responsivity of the roller is poor, unsatisfactory image transfer will occur. FIG. 1 of the accompanying drawings shows an example of unsatisfactory image transfer on the transfer paper P1, from which it will be seen that image transfer cannot take place in the trailing end area a of an image and the leading end area b of the next image. The presence of such unrecorded or unclearly recorded areas at the leading and the trailing end of images is particularly inconvenient if the transfer paper is fan-folded paper on which recording should be made in synchronism page by page.